Peter Parker (physician)

Peter Parker (June 18, 1804 – January 10, 1888) was an American physician and a missionary who introduced Western medical techniques into Qing Dynasty China. It was said that Parker "opened China to the gospel at the point of a lancet."

Parker was born in Framingham, Massachusetts in 1804 to an orthodox Congregational family. His parents were farmers. Parker received a B.A. degree from Yale University in 1831, and his M.D. degree from the Yale Medical School, then called Medical Institution of Yale College, in 1834. In January 1834, he completed his theological studies at Yale and was ordained as a Presbyterian minister.

In February 1834, Parker traveled to Canton, where he had the distinction of being the first full-time Protestant medical missionary to China. In 1835, he opened in that city the Ophthalmic Hospital, which later became the Guangzhou Boji Hospital (the Canton Hospital). Parker specialized in diseases of the eye, including cataracts, and also resected tumors. Parker also introduced Western anesthesia in the form of sulphuric ether.

Although the hospital was intended particularly for the treatment of eye diseases, it was soon found impracticable to exclude patients suffering from other maladies. Over 2,000 patients were admitted the first year. Parker often preached to the patients, and trained several Chinese students in the arts of medicine and surgery, some of whom attained considerable skill.

Merchant David Olyphant of Olyphant & Co. allowed Parker to use one of his warehouses as a hospital "so that patients could come and go without annoying foreigners by passing through their hongs, or excite the observations of natives by being seen to resort to a foreigner's house, rendered it most suitable for the purpose."

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